


from a window above, it's like a story of love

by violentdarlings



Series: clockwork triad [3]
Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Codependency, Dubious Consent, F/M, Herongraystairs, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Victorian, playing fast and loose with Silent Brother canon, weird sexual dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 17:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6160459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The continuing romance of Tessa, Will, and Brother Zachariah, down the years, in no particular order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from a window above, it's like a story of love

**Author's Note:**

> It’s not explicitly said (I think) when the flowerpot incident occurred, so hypothetically it could have happened while the kids were small. We know it went down in Herondale family history as ‘another crazy thing Dad did to see Uncle Jem’.

 

**_“Father was always inventing excuses for Uncle Jem to come to them—once he had claimed a flowerpot was possessed by a demon.”_ **

 

_Wonder if you'll understand,_

_It's just the touch of your hand_

_Behind a closed door._

Yazoo, Only You

 _That_ , Jem says firmly, _is a flowerpot._

Tessa turns away to hide a smile. Will, in contrast, is not even attempting to mask his; he is beaming at Jem as though both Christmas and his birthday _and_ his children’s birthdays have all come early. “Well, yes,” Will says, “it is _also_ a flowerpot.”

 _William_ , Jem says, managing to infuse some of the old dryness into his mind-voice, _we have discussed this. You cannot summon me from the Silent City for trivialities. That is –_

 _“_ A plague on both your houses!” the flowerpot squeaks. Jem pauses mid-sentence – or mid-thought, Tessa supposes – and fixes the flowerpot with something that once might have been astonishment. On _Brother Zachariah’s_ scarred face, though, it is merely curious, verging on puzzled.

 _How extraordinary,_ Jem says. Will is smiling fit to crack his face open.

“I know! Isn’t it absolutely fantastic?” Jem’s left eyebrow twitches, as though perhaps the disobedient feature had threatened to rise sardonically.

 _How extraordinary,_ he continues blandly, as if he had not been interrupted _, that you were telling the truth._

Tessa makes a noise that is decidedly not a laugh, no indeed, it is not, and manages to keep a straight face when Will adopts a wounded expression.

“No loyalty,” he laments. “Not from my _parabatai_ , not from my wife –”

 _I am no longer your parabatai,_ _Will,_ Jem says coolly as he carefully examines the interior of the flowerpot. It is empty, as Tessa knew it would be; the demon is possessing the whole of the pot, rather than simply being trapped inside it. Will is frowning.

“When we are both dead and interred, Jem, you will still be my _parabatai_ ,” he snaps. “And if the stars burn out and demons overtake the whole of the earth and the universe comes to an end, you will still be my _parabatai_.”

“How cheerful,” Tessa deadpans.

Jem says nothing as he sets the flowerpot down gently, but Tessa sees the corner of his mouth twitch. _The demon is inhabiting the very fabric of the pot itself,_ he says abruptly, as if to cover some momentary flicker of emotion. _It may take some time to unravel its hold on the physical world._

“Excellent!” Will says with far too much enthusiasm to be quite appropriate. “You’ll stay for dinner, I assume?”

 _It perhaps has escaped your notice that I no longer eat._ Will’s face falls slightly, but quickly brightens.

“You can’t leave! Not with this dangerous artefact still uncontained. It could place all of London at risk! No, you must stay. Isn’t that right, Flowerpot?” He pokes the unwitting vessel with a fingertip.

“Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee!”

“Exactly,” Will says, striding out of the study, leaving Will and Tessa in his wake. Jem inclines his head for a moment, and she can almost see, in her mind’s eye, exasperated silver eyes superimposed over his closed lids.

 _I suppose I have no choice,_ _then,_ he says, and there is no mistaking the trace of faint fond vexation in his mind-voice.

“Perhaps not,” Tessa replies.

“Your virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese,” the flowerpot mutters rebelliously. Jem draws himself up.

 _I can assure you, sir, your claim is decidedly without veracity,_ he says tartly, much as he would have before the runes of the Brotherhood were laid upon him. Tessa hides a smile when he looks up at her ruefully. Of course, he can see the smile in her eyes, but she always does him the decency of pretending she never notices, how he becomes more the old Jem the longer he spends in their company.

“Come and see Jamie,” Tessa suggests instead. “You won’t believe how big he’s gotten.”

 

Jamie, when confronted by ‘Uncle Jem’, shrieks with joy and toddles over to wrap his arms around Jem’s knees. Jem kneels and wraps his arms around Jamie, his cowl falling forward to hide his face, as Jem is often wont to do in times of great emotion. Tessa can tell that Jem is talking to Jamie, she can see from the way her boy babbles responses every few seconds, but whatever words pass between them are evidently for Jamie alone.

Tessa loves them all so much it hurts, her family, the family she’d once thought she might never have.

Jem stands, Jamie on one hip, and comes over to where Tessa is holding Lucie. Jamie is given over to the care of his father; he squirms in Will’s arms and demands to be put down. Jamie will brook being picked up by no one but Mama and Uncle Jem. Will pouts, but Tessa knows he doesn’t truly mind. Lucie is transferred into Jem’s arms and this time, his hood is thrown back; Tessa can see everything, the play of delight and joy over Jem’s dear, beloved face. _Hello, little love,_ Jem croons, and this time Tessa can hear him. Lucie, much like her brother, is conditioned to know Uncle Jem as nothing but tenderness and love; she waves a fist up at him. Her babies are not quite as small now as they were during the horrific affair of the Whitechapel Fiend, but it still hurts Tessa’s heart to be away from them for long.

Never will Tessa forget a dinner spent watching a Silent Brother painstakingly feed Lucie her dinner, the spoon held in his hands as delicately as he’d once held his violin or a sword. _No, Lucie, swallow,_ he directs, and even Jamie is fascinated at the sight of Uncle Jem feeding his little sister.

“Do you think he knows how to do the train?” Will stage whispers to Tessa, and Jem looks up.

 _The train?_ he asks, and Will smirks. He leans over, plucks the spoon from Jem’s hand, and makes a ‘choo, choo’ noise as he waves the spoon in the general direction of Lucie’s mouth.

 _Tessa_. Jem’s mind-voice is appalled. _I do not think it is befitting a Silent Brother to do the… choo choo train._ Will’s shoulders are shaking with suppressed amusement, and Tessa is fighting back her own laughter only with great personal strength.

“It is not necessary, James,” she assures him, but Jem is regarding the returned spoon with a determined air.

 _If it is what is best for Lucie,_ he says nobly, and, with the mental impression of a man biting into a lemon, he says, putting the spoon into Lucie’s mouth, _choo, choo._

In the resulting merriment, Tessa notices Will sneak away. Jamie is enthralled in watching Uncle Jem and Lucie, and Jem is intent on his task; they will not notice if she goes too. Quickly, Tessa follows her husband down the hall. She peeks around the corner of Will’s study, only to see him bent over the flowerpot, crooning to it gently.

“Now keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll let you out soon enough,” Tessa overhears him murmur to the flowerpot. The flowerpot jiggles slightly.

“You’d better, I’m running out of Shakespeare.” Will tuts disapprovingly.

“It’s so hard to get good help these days,” he says sadly. The flowerpot jumps an inch or so in outrage.

“ _You_ try reading poetry in the demon realms, you lily-livered –”

“Enough out of you,” Will says, and drops the flowerpot into a wooden box. As its muffled shrieking grows in volume, and the box threatens to tip over entirely from the pot’s determined thrashing, Will says softly, still facing away from her, “It’s rather bad form to eavesdrop, Tessa.” Smiling, she moves into the light.

“Some might say its bad form to make deals with minor demons,” she rebukes lightly. Will shrugs, although she can see a little red on his cheeks. Although perhaps it’s merely from his exertions with the flowerpot.

“It’s just a little thing – oh, do shut up,” he says, kicking the wooden box with some force. “Jem will sort it out.”

“And when he finds out that you forced that demon to inhabit the flowerpot?” Tessa asks quietly. Will grins, the bright reckless smile she first fell in love with, the day he rescued her all those years ago, and tucks her into his side like the years have not passed at all.

“That’s a conversation for another time, don’t you think?” he asks.

Back in the dining room, Jem has triumphantly finished feeding Lucie her dinner, while Jamie has disappeared entirely. Probably touching sticky hands to the Institute’s furniture, Tessa thinks with a sigh. Jem accompanies her as she puts Lucie to sleep in her bassinet, tucks Jamie up into bed and, when compelled, reads him a story. Halfway through she looks up to see Jem leaning against a wall, his eyes closed somehow differently than usual, as if in peace rather than by vow. Something solidifies in Tessa’s mind, a thought gains form and coalesces.

She shouldn’t. But oh, how she wants.

Jem follows silently as she returns to Will’s study. Her husband has the flowerpot out again, although it appears to be under orders to pretend (at least in front of Jem) that he is not its master. It shrieks, curses, rages, and bellows, all entirely in iambic pentameter. Jem waits patiently for it to subside into miserable sonnets before he begins his work. The night ticks on; Tessa feels her eyelids droop.

 _I do not understand,_ Jem says at last, sounding more than a little baffled. _This demon has powers it ought not. It should not be able to withstand me – at least, not without a master to anchor it to this realm._

“Perhaps we should smash it,” Will says helpfully and rather quickly. The flowerpot shudders.

 _No,_ Jem says _, I do not believe that would be useful. The demon may simply take another object as its vessel. For now, it appears to be trapped in the flowerpot. For it to inhabit a sword, or a fireplace would be… inadvisable._

“And fain am I to leave this humble form, I will tarry longer here, in the warm,” the flowerpot intones. Jem looks faintly ill. Will, by comparison, is almost incandescent with pride.

“Look at you, making up your own iambic pentameter,” he coos at it.

 _I had not thought it possible, that there is poetry worse in this world than yours,_ William, Jem comments dryly. Tessa laughs.

“I thought it was good,” sulks Will, as the grandfather clock chimes midnight.

 _I apologise,_ Jem says, rising in a fluid motion so common to the Brothers, putting the flowerpot back into its box for safety. _I have kept you both too long. We will recommence in the morning._

“Wonderful idea,” Will says. “Come along, Jem.” He takes Jem by the arm, and Tessa reflects he is probably one of four people in the world who Jem allows to touch him. She follows along in their wake, listening to the conversation. Tessa is perfectly willing to guide them when necessary, but Will seems to have an idea in his head, and Tessa is curious to see it though.

 _Where are we going?_ Jem asks, although once he knew the Institute as well as Will and Tessa.

“Where do you think? What else were you going to do all night?” Jem tilts his head.

_I just thought I’d sit in your study quietly._

“With just Flowerpot for company? No, brother, I don’t think so.”

They have reached their destination. Will pushes open the door to his and Tessa’s bedroom, and Tessa comes to Jem’s side as he halts on the threshold as though he’s been stunned. Jem’s eyes are shuttling back and forth under their lids, as though the instinct to dart around looking for an escape route overrides the knowledge of his closed eyes. _What is this?_ he demands, his mind-voice more emphatic that Tessa has ever known it. At least, since the days when he used his mouth, rather than his mind, to communicate. _I do not know – everything is different now – you cannot expect –_ Tessa has never heard James’ mind-voice so fractured, as though his thoughts are going in a thousand different directions at once and he cannot render them straight.

“I don’t expect anything from you, James,” Will interrupts, his spine very straight and his voice very even. “Of course not. But if you think Tessa and I will spent a moment parted from you that we do not have to, you have forgotten more than I thought.”

Jem’s cowl is shadowing his face, but with some effort he reaches up and pushes it back. _No, Will,_ he says, and his mind-voice is somehow very small, _I have not forgotten. Forgive me._

“Already done,” Will says gruffly, and mutely Jem follows them into the bedroom. For a moment Tessa is struck by the absurdity of it, three (more or less) grown adults standing in a bedroom, staring at one another in confusion. Tessa shores up her courage.

“Will dares not ask this of you,” she says, “but I do. Silent Brothers are forbidden to take a wife, to love. I do not ask that _you_ love me. I only ask you let me love you.”

 _It is not only forbidden,_ Jem says tightly. _You know as well as I. I am incapable, Tessa, as I am now, to be a part of what we were then._

“I know that, Jem,” Tessa replies. “The last thing in the world I would want is to make you uncomfortable, or to implore you to act against your will.”

 _Then what is it you want?_ Jem asks, his mind-voice as hesitant as she’s ever heard it. _What can I possibly give you, as I am?_

“Oh, Jem,” she says, because out of the three of them she is not a Shadowhunter, and she can ask for things when her boys would never dare, “just let me show you, please.”

Jem bows his head, and it is the closest to acquiescence that Tessa can expect. She steps close to him, kisses the cuts over his cheeks, the familiar bow of his closed mouth, the eyelashes of his shut eyes. She does not expect him to respond, does not know how much of the flesh he can feel in his current form – she has never asked, and certainly he has not volunteered the information. Yet Tessa finds she does not need to. Jem is shaking, trembling like a leaf in a gale, as he always used to under her hands, back in the days when he was as thin as a rake and silver, silver eyes and hair and as pale as the first tremulous fingers of dawn over the horizon. Now he is sturdy with muscle, for the Brothers make war as well as wisdom, but he is still her Jem.

There is passion in the way she touches him, a steady, guarded passion that endures and does not expect to be returned. It is not sexual, although Tessa does want him, will always want Jem, no matter how much he changes. But she does not expect him to return it; she knows he is capable of less, now. Which is why she nearly jumps out of her skin when cool hands rest on her shoulders, neither caressing nor moving, but patient, as if waiting for her to do what she must. Tessa is quite convinced that Jem does not know he is trembling. Tessa is quite convinced that Jem is certain this does not affect him at all.

She draws back, and after a moment Jem takes his hands away. _Oh, Tessa,_ he says, and there is so much feeling to it that he almost sounds her Jem again, the Jem who’d loved her trembling and raw, with every inch of his soul. _Tessa. You mustn’t._

“Why not?” she asks, and Jem shudders, as though the stone in him is cracking.

 _Because if you don’t, I’ll never ask you to stop,_ he murmurs, and although she is dying to touch him again, she forces herself to step back, because he has asked.

She looks to her husband. Will has been watching, with such fire in his eyes that Tessa’s flesh feels fit to melt off her bones. That much has not changed, at least, when once he had watched Jem enthusiastically bed Tessa with such intensity he’d thrown caution to the wind and joined them halfway through. He strides forward and takes her in his arms, kissing her so fiercely the world melts away, except for Jem’s silent presence close, so close.

“Don’t you dare, James,” Will rasps, taking his lips away for a moment. Tessa follows his gaze, and sees that Jem has indeed been edging towards the door, as though hoping to make a quick escape while they are distracted. “Don’t you pretend for a moment like you’re not part of this.”

Jem’s face does not change, but Tessa hears it in his voice, the saddest and sweetest of smiles, _But I cannot._

“But you will stay?” Will presses, the warmth of his body sending shivers down Tessa’s spine. Sometimes it feels like forever they’ve been married, and sometimes no time at all.

 _I will stay. After all,_ and a touch of humour enters Jem’s mind-voice, _there is a flowerpot to be vanquished in the morning._

 

Will takes Tessa to bed with such ferocity that she can only cling to his shoulders and be dragged along in his wake. It is like this, sometimes, and other times she takes the lead and those are just as enjoyable. Nevertheless, there is something marvellous about lying under Will, being half crushed under his weight, her legs wrapped around his hips and her hand tucked firmly into Jem’s. The often-absent third of their trio sits in a chair drawn up to the bed, his head tilted as though examining all before him, for all his eyes remain firmly shut.

Will props himself up on one elbow, moves inside of her even as he cups her breasts in his hands. _They have changed,_ Jem says, sounding almost bemused. _They are… bigger._

“That happens sometimes, when women have babies,” Tessa replies, only a little out of breath. It would be strange, to be entwined with Will while Jem is there, but for all the times it has happened before. And oh, those times; her boys on either side of her, all right with the world.

 _Fascinating._ Jem’s hand tightens in Tessa’s. _You’re close,_ he says matter-of-factly. _I remember. You sound the same._

“Sound?” Tessa gasps, as Will does that _thing_ with his hips that always pushes her close to the edge.

 _Sound,_ Jem confirms. _I – it used to - I mean –_

“It got you hard,” Will says bluntly. Jem’s head whips up, his eyelids tense; Tessa imagines for a moment she sees a flash of silver, and shivers. “Don’t be like that, Jem, it does the same thing to me.”

Jem ducks his head, and there is almost something wicked in his voice when he says, _yes. I remember that too._

“Thrilled as I am for this little interlude,” Tessa says, her teeth clenched, “It’s incredibly bad manners to keep a lady waiting.”

 _She’s right,_ Jem agrees. Will sighs, and Tessa fights down a giggle, at the put upon expression on his face. Will turns his attention back to her, blue eyes blazing, and brings his full weight down onto her, resting his head in the crook of her neck. He’s not playing, anymore; his hips drive hard and fast and while it’s not always enough, to tip her over the edge with him, she’s wound as tightly as a bowstring and seeing stars behind her eyes.

She forces them open, looks at Jem, suddenly closer than he was; he has dropped to his knees beside the bed, as though drawn close to them by a pull he does not understand, although once he did. “Jem,” she says, and reaches up, for his face; his skin is cool and he is so close to her, closer than he ever comes at the bridge. “I love you, Jem,” she says; against her throat she can feel Will mouthing the same words, his voice gone low, and it is so right for him to be here, it is more than right.

“Tessa,” says a voice, one so rough it barely sounds human, and every fibre in her body thrills to it, “Will. I’m here –”

It’s enough. Tessa arches and the whole world goes white; she feels Will’s hips stutter and she tightens her legs around him. It’s always good with Will but Jem is here, where he belongs, the missing piece that she and Will are always aware of, no matter their joy at their children or the business of their lives.

When the world settles back on its axis, Tessa cracks open an eyelid. Will is heavy on top of her, and when she elbows him a little he moves away slightly, bare as the day he was born and completely unashamed. Tessa curls into his side and looks over at Jem.

“You talked,” she says stupidly; the ragged noise of his true voice will be one she treasures for years to come. Jem shakes his head.

 _I did not,_ he replies. Will gapes.

“I heard you, we both did –”

 _I did not,_ Jem repeats with some force _. Because if I did, that would constitute breaking my vows, and I would be honour bound to inform my Brothers. And I would be returned to as I was before I was Marked, dying of yin fen poisoning._

“He’s right, Will,” Tessa says after a moment. “He didn’t say a word.” Will’s eyes are suspiciously bright, and he is blinking quite a lot. He tucks his head into where Tessa’s shoulder meets her neck; she feels the wet heat of tears against her skin, but she doesn’t say a word. Jem knows. Jem always knows.

“Indeed he didn’t,” Will says, his voice rather thick.

 _You should sleep,_ Jem says, and he is drawing the sheets up over them, for all Tessa and Will are not in the habit of sleeping nude. But Jem is not to know that. After all, they spent rather a lot of time nude with him, once upon a time. _I will stand guard against the demonic flowerpot._

Will huffs a tired laugh against Tessa’s shoulder, but he does not sleep. Nor does Tessa. Sleep, when Jem is there? Madness, indeed. But they do sleep, eventually, to the soft sound of Jem and his violin, and for a time all is right with the world.

 

In the morning, after breakfast (Jem feeds Lucie again and does the train without having to be asked); after Tessa wakes, to find Jem is still there, they go to the study to see about the flowerpot. Evidently Will has been in and had a word to it, because when the box is opened, the poor pot is completely inanimate. Jem tests it multiple times.

“It must have just wandered off,” is Will’s contribution. Jem makes a mental noise something like a laugh.

_And you must be getting slower in your dotage, William, if you thought for a moment I did not know you were the master of that imp._

“First of all, I’m not in my dotage,” Will snaps. “Just because you’re frozen in time and Tessa’s bloody immortal–”

_Getting sensitive about your age, are you?_

“If this was still the old days, I’d see you in the training room for that,” Will growls.

_I’d like to see you try._

“Boys!” Tessa interrupts, and just like ‘the old days’, as Will puts it, two heads turn to her in surprise. “While usually I’d let the banter continue unimpeded, Jem. You knew Will was lying?”

You _knew Will was lying_? There is a note of surprise in Jem’s mind-voice.

“Yes, of course I knew,” Tessa says impatiently. “I’m his wife, I know everything about him.”

“I resent that,” Will says to no one in particular.

“Why did you stay?” Tessa asks. Jem shrugs, an unusually mortal gesture for someone beyond the trappings of humanity. But already Tessa can see him withdrawing, becoming less their Jem and more Brother Zachariah, as he must be to the rest of the world.

 _You asked,_ he says quietly, and leaves.

Tessa catches up with him just as he reaches the front door of the Institute. “Jem,” she says, and obligingly he turns. “What happened…”

 _Nothing happened._ Jem’s mind-voice is firm. _I was summoned, I did as was asked. We worked on the problem of the demon all night. I departed as soon as we were completed in our task. I trust as much will be reported to the Clave in Will’s report._

Tessa bows her head. “Of course,” she says. “Nothing happened.”

 _Indeed._ Tessa catches at the sleeve of his robe.

“Will nothing happen ever again?” she asks impulsively. Just for a moment, just for her, Jem’s mouth tilts up a fraction into a smile.

_Perhaps._

**Author's Note:**

> “I just thought I’d sit here, quietly,” is of course said by Castiel in Supernatural. I tweaked it a bit. Everything Shakespeare-sounding is from the man himself. Jem, Tessa, Will, etc. all belong to Cassandra Clare.


End file.
